Without Your Senseless Hate
by weirdmixofsodapopanddallas
Summary: But he held Steve down and screamed he wanted him to die. (ONE-SHOT)


_Author's note: Hey, guys! What's shakin'?_

 _This is the first song-fic I've ever done, so I would really appreciate feedback so I know what you think._

 _The song is "The Last Song I'm Wasting On You" by Evanescence. I did this because I feel like Steve is an incredibly misunderstood and underappreciated character. I even has a t-shirt that says so. I just feel like Steve deserves more recognition than he gets._

 ** _Without Your Senseless Hate_**

 **Sparkling grey**

 **They're my own veins**

I'm seven years old. I lie unmoving in the patch of moonlight coming in from the window to my bed. You haven't ever hurt me before, but today you hurt me _**bad**_. So I lie there, staring at the bruises in the shapes of fingers that create some kind of sickening bracelet on my arm. The veins on them look like sparkling grey silver in the moonlight. My favorite color. But they're not silver. I don't deserve silver. They're just my own veins.

 **Any more than a whisper**

 **Any sudden movement of my heart**

I can't let myself care about you. It doesn't matter how things used to be. It doesn't matter that you used to read me stories and play basketball with me or put me on your shoulders so I could see the football game. Or just hold me close and tell me you love me.

None of that matters anymore.

What matters is that I keep my emotions tightly under wraps. If you see that anything you're saying has any effect on me at all…

"You worthless piece of shit! Nobody cares about you! You don't mean nothin' to nobody!"

I flinch and look away for a second.

You backhand me across the face. "You look at me when I'm talkin' to you, ya bastard."

There's a note of triumph in your voice. Something you said actually got to me. You'll use that one again.

 **And I know**

 **I know I'll have to watch them pass away**

I'm eight. At school I made a model car, and now I run home, excited to show Mom. Not too long ago, I would've been excited to show it to you too, but now I don't want you to even take one look at it. You're not allowed to make it dirty, just like everything else you lay eyes on.

When I throw her bedroom door open, I find Mom dangling from a rope by her neck, a toppled chair under her feet.

I drop the car and begin to scream.

 **Just get through this day**

You grab me and throw me out of the room, away from my mother's corpse. "This is all your fault, you son of a bitch! Get out!

I do.

 **Give up your way**

 **You could be anything**

Why can't you learn? You're an incredible man. I saw that when I was young. Why can't you give up the booze and go back to that? Then you could do something. Anything. The possibilities are endless.

 **Give up my way**

 **And lose myself**

 **Not today**

I could lose my level of suspicion. I could learn to love. I could be happy. But I don't want to.

But I do.

But I don't.

But I do.

Who cares? I'm not going to worry about that now. I already have enough to worry about.

 **There's too much guilt to pay**

Besides, I don't deserve it. What if Mom did kill herself because of me? What if I let her down in some way? I mean, if I didn't, wouldn't she have stuck around for me? At the very least? Did I mean anything to her? Or did I matter just as little as I matter to you now?

Sodapop Curtis seems bound and determined to help me. But I don't deserve it.

I don't deserve to be happy.

 **Sickened in the sun**

 **You dare tell me you love me**

Johnny and Dally are gone. I never thought we'd lose anyone so soon. Adults are different. It was sad when we lost Soda's folks, but it was allowed. Adults are allowed to die. Not kids.

Johnny was just a kid.

In a way, Dally was too.

I'm sick of wandering around Tulsa, needing to get away from the gloom and doom that surrounds me and my friends, and for the first time in a long time, at noon, I go home.

I don't wanna cry in front of you, but I can't stop. So I just stand there facing you, utterly broken, tears making sparkling tracks down my cheeks.

After a second, you step forward. I flinch, expecting to be yelled at and hit for coming home this early, but instead you put your arms around me. You hold me and whisper that you love me.

For just a second, I feel like I'm three years old again, and everything is as it should be.

 **But you held me down and screamed you wanted me to die**

The next day, it's as if nothing happened, and me and you are back to what we do best. The screaming. The abuse. I don't say a word back to you for a long time.

You have me pinned on the floor. This is the first time you've beaten me in a while. Why do you have to be bigger and stronger than me? You're damaging every inch of me you can reach as I struggle and gasp in pain.

"I WANT YOU TO DIE!" you scream over and over. "I WANT YOU TO DIE!"

That night, you very nearly get your wish.

 **Honey, you know**

 **You know I'd never hurt you that way**

 **You're just so pretty in your pain**

You have me pinned again, this time against the wall. I can't get loose. You haven't done anything other than bitch at me yet, but I'm waiting for more.

Finally, you scream at me, "Why don't you ever say anything back?! Why d'you just stand there takin' it?!"

"Why d'you say anythin' in the first place?" I whisper quietly, actually having something resembling nerve for once.

Why don't I say anything back? Because I still love you. No matter how much I tell people otherwise, no matter how many times I proclaim that I hate you, you low down dirty son of a bitch, I still love you. To some part of me, deep down, you'll always be the man who held me close and told me you love me.

I look up at you, and I know. I never say anything because I'd never hurt you that way.

You look into my face, considering my question. Then you see it. You see in my eyes that I still care. Even though I hate myself for it, I still care.

Your brush my shaggy brown hair out of my eyes. "You're just so pretty in your pain." comes the quiet answer.

 **Give up my way**

 **I could be anything**

Maybe I should just let it all go. It's been almost ten years since Mom killed herself. As traumatizing as that was for me, and even though being the one to find her corpse is probably gonna haunt me till the day I die, I know realistically that it couldn't have been because of me. No woman is going to kill herself over her eight-year-old son who's never been anything but an angel. At least, that's how she put it.

If I let this go, allow myself to be happy…

There's just so much more out there for me…

 **I'll make my own way**

I've long since stopped doing anything you say, and now I'm ready to abandon how you taught me to live. I don't need to be suspicious of _**everyone**_ no matter how many times they prove themselves to me. I can trust somebody other that Soda for once in my life. Not everything's miserable all the time. Every now and then, things are okay. In reality, I just need to do what Soda's been trying to help me figure out since day one.

Life can be, and is, something you can love.

Whatever you might've been, you aren't my family anymore. I've got Soda. Darry. Two-Bit. Even Ponyboy. They're my family.

I don't need you.

 **Without your senseless hate**

The screaming…

 **Hate**

The hidden physical abuse…

 **Hate**

The abandonment…

 **Hate**

The agony…

 **So run**

My feet pound the pavement.

 **Run**

It's a place of nightmares, pain, fear, and confusion.

It's hell.

 **Run**

I go to my actual home, the one place I know I'm safe.

 **And hate me**

 **If it feels good**

 **I can't hear your screams anymore**

You can hate me. That's fine. If you get off on hating your own son, knock yourself out. Here, in this place, surrounded by my family, nothing you've done to me matters anymore.

 **You lied to me**

I still remember when you were sober for two whole weeks. I was so proud of you. I got you a present.

It didn't last.

Less than a year ago, you held me and told me you love me.

How could you?

 **But I'm older now**

I'm not the seven-year-old who loved you anymore.

 **And I'm not buying baby**

You call the Curtis house that night for the first time ever and beg me to come home, saying you love me. I tell you to go jump and hang up the phone. I'm not stupid enough to believe you.

Not this time.

 **Demanding my response**

You come to the door the next morning. "Steven! Steven, you come out here right the shit now!"

 **Don't bother breaking the door down**

You pound so hard on the door that I'm surprised it doesn't just snap in half. But nobody acknowledges you. All foot traffic is diverted out the back door and across the yard. I apologize about you, but they tell me it doesn't matter.

They understand.

 **I've found my way out**

I'm eighteen. I buy my own apartment, one with two rooms so Soda can share with me in a few months when he's old enough. I gotta work hard for the cash, but it's worth it. I'm so far away from you and everything you've done to me. Everything you made me believe about myself. I finally have something I can call my own.

I no longer walk like a broken, violent, angry boy.

 **And you'll never hurt me again**

I walk like a man.

 **PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE!**


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